Consider the plights of retail workers and fast food servers. Start with Ikea. The makers of Tyler Durden's favorite furniture this week announced that they will be raising the minimum wage for thousands of its retail workers. On January first Ikea's base pay will rise to $10.76 an hour on average. With Scandinavian pragmatism, the exact rate will be pegged to how much it costs to live in the area surrounding the store. In other words, the company is looking to pay a base line living wage.

With the move Ikea joins Gap Stores. Earlier this year Gap announced that it would be raising it's lowest pay level to $10 an hour by 2015. They didn't say so in as many words but Gap implied they made the move because they wanted to attract a better class of workers.